Succulents/cactus to grow in the ground - Zone 9B?

Thank you. I had no idea what "LA" was.

I, too, like dogs which think for themselves. I don't think I could ever have a Lab or Golden Retriever, for example. Way too much slavish attention for me!

Half a day of sun could either be enough or not quite enough. Hard to tell without knowing exactly which plant it is. Can you take a picture? Is the yellowing leaf also a little mushy? If so, it could be because it's being watered too much. If not, it could just be settling in and losing its lower leaves in the process.

I haven't watered much of anything for the last two weeks because it's been so cool and cloudy. I'll water tomorrow because we've had a couple of nice hot days, but I still won't water anything that's in pots over 6" which have top dressing. They're probably still wet. Same for anything in the little greenhouse because it's way too shady in there and the Haworthias (the only thing I can grow in it) are still wet too.

You can't blame me (Marilyn)! I didn't get you into ANY of this! LOL I like your family saying.

Marilyn

All I do is post pretty pics, honest, it's not my fault!

WELLLL........ Like doss said, "First assess blame." HEHEHEHEHE

Sorry Marilyn. Brain mush again. I sure hope that getting off of this medicine works. I can't stand it.

I'll photo the Echevaria tomorrow. I believe that it is a Mauna Loa hybrid.
http://danielscactus.hypermart.net/

I'll look at the leaf again. All the other echevaria look OK. And I watered once when I put them in and not since. I used succulent/cactus planting mix and they have outstanding drainage. As long as the center looks alright I guess I'm OK? It's the only one doing this weird thing. Although it did lose 2 of it's leaves when I put it in the ground. I stuck both in the dirt. One's doing great and the others very soft. I'm getting pup growth already among some of the other echevarias. It's fun to watch them develop. Plenty of opportunity three times a day :-)

And you are right Sue. You post beautiful photos and send fabulous lists that I ask for. I get myself in my own trouble. And I'm enjoying every single minute of it.
Sue is eternally patient with a thousand daylily questions.
Picture lady has just had entirely too much fun with Margo Reed Indeed. Indeed.
And now I have my succulent angel.

Are you guys talking about me??? What's that doss? You want to see Margo Reed Indeed !!!

She is a beauty...but don't forget now, there are many other daylilies that are beautiful also!!! What is your favorite color? I can show you more!!!

BTW...Are you into brugs at all??? Got some photos of those also!!!

Like this one...INHERITED WEALTH

I took these shots for you this morning. Notice bloom stalk on the right and the puffed out spent blooms on the left. Sorry, no idea of plant names and terminology, just enjoying them!

***

And since Margie brought up Angel Trumpets, my double white is blooming one of it's biggest flushes this AM. Heavenly frangrance!

WOW..Sue...that is some flush! Beautiful !!!

What an incredible Brug!

OK, as far as dayliles, I haven't found a burgundy I really love. Got any? And I love the staghorn succulent. It's really great. What sun exposure do these get sue?

Here's a photo of the succulent. Some other lettuce edged Echevarias are getting these brown spots on their larger leaves. They aren't mushy at all though. Still the same substance and the middle leaves (Do you have a better name for them?) are just fine.

So what to do?

doss...I think this is a really pretty burgundy...

MAGICAL MYSTERY (Rice, John)

That is beautiful indeed. I've seen it at daylilies west but your photo is much more appealing. And it's even within reach financially! Thanks.

I found out what was wrong with my Echevaria. Sun burn. Danna at Daniel's said to put some shade cloth over them. So it's a trip to home depot tomorrow.

Another difference between growing succulents and other plants is that you should NOT water them for at least a week to ten days after planting. This is because they need to callous off any damage which might have been done to them. This could be caused by making cuttings, removing offsets, dirt or dead roots, or just accidentally nicking them. Any little bit of damage allows water to get into the plant and begin the rotting process. Now this won't happen all the time to all the plants, but it does happen. So as a precaution don't water them until at least a week or so after they've been planted.

Glad you were able to specifically identify the problem with your Echeveria. Once you put the shade cloth on, don't leave it on forever. Take it off anytime it's cloudy, and when it's sunny start taking it off for a little while each day, making the time that the shade cloth is off longer and longer until you don't need it anymore. This should take a couple of weeks or so. Also, watch the watering. The shadecloth will also keep water from evaporating quite as quickly.

picturelady and Sue: Love the Brugmansia, the Daylilies (especially the burgundy one!) and, of course, the succulent planters are especially marvelous.

OK no watering - I haven't watered since you told me not to. Except for the DH slip. I plan to keep the shadecloth on only in the morning and then when they are no longer in the sun- about 1:00 - I'll remove it.

You answered the question I had about the shade cloth maintaining water. You're a mindreader.

Thanks again.

You're welcome!! Now what's this about spending the whole day at the hairdresser's? What did you have done, a whole body makeover? LOL HEHEHEHE

What kinds of problems does your medication cause? Will you be able to get off of it forever?

Yes, actually i'm one of the stepford wives. Just send me to the beauty parlor once every month for a tune up and I'll do anything you ask me to. :-)

Got the floating cover out over the succulents that were frying - I'll put it there in the morning and take it off in the afternoons for awhile when they are in the shade and the sun will gradually sink lower and give them more shade. The pups in the tree planter though don't seem to be hurting at all. They actually get more shade.

I'll tell you about my meds in a dmail. Anybody else who wants to know is free to dmail me and I'll tell you. I really do appreciate your caring but Google picks up these threads.

They do make me spacey and dizzy and I can't find words - and no, it's not like getting older. :-)

D

The last thing I'd want you to do is to give out personal info, online or not. Sometimes my fingers work faster than my brain. Sorry about that!

I asked because a long time ago I was on some medication that made my brain go away. I tried to call my roommate at her job and couldn't remember her name. I flushed the meds down the toilet.

Stepford wife, huh? Do you wear a nice dress and apron when you're cooking? LOL :>)

Hmmm. An apron. I don't think that I know what that is. Haven't seen one in years. A nice dress? Well, maybe I'm not a Stepford Wife after all. :-)

You're SOOOOO funneee!!! LOL

Try my best. I have a silly mother. I can't help it. :-)

Think that it's genetic? Nature or nurture? Survival????

Having a sense of humor and being able to laugh at yourself are very healthy traits. I think it's probably both nature AND nurture. I have to remind myself sometimes to just let go of things and not take them personally, and find the humor in situations. My family is mostly German, and very stern people. I try hard to loosen up. I like nothing better than a good belly laugh though.

I had an Irish grandfather, a German grandmother. Luckily my German grandmother had a good enough sense of humor to live with my very entertaining grandfather. But I do know what you mean.

Your grandfather must have been a trial to your grandmother at times!!

I remember many years ago when a boyfriend and I went to my mom's house about 70 miles from where I lived. At that time my German grandfather was living with mom and my little sister. We had a nice visit, not the first time my boyfriend had been there, but when we left he had the wierdest look on his face. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "He talked to me!! He actually TALKED to me!" I hadn't thought much about it at the time, but it was a big deal to my boyfriend. Most of the time all you got out of Grandpa was a grunt, or one syllable answers. Just his way. LOL

My german relatives were actually very interactive and warm. I think that I take after them though in that I'm incredibly literal. But my other grandfather was Scots and between my Scots and Iris grandfathers I had to learn a really great sense of humor - they loved to tease you. Although it never seemed malicious - you had to be able to laugh to survive in my family. Plus that we all lived on top of each other. It had it's really great points for the kids in the family but we all sure saw a lot of each other.

I've just put a bunch of fuchsias in - hoping to avoid the fuchsia mite. Anyway, it is because of my grandmother's fabulous fuchsias. I loved them. It's funny how we bring our past with us at times.

My German grandparents weren't so warm, but we all knew they cared about us because they took great pains to be sure they did their part in raising us well. But I could have done with some of YOUR grandparents' teasing! We are alike in that I was also raised with grandparents being close and aunts and uncles not so far away. Plus growing up in a small town meant everyone knew each other.

The fuchsias we have for sale at the Garden are all species which are supposed to be resistant to the dreaded fuchsia mite. In spite of that, we've had to throw away quite a few of them because they became infected. I have a fondness for Christmas cactus because my grandmother had one as far back as I can remember.

I'm glad that you had your grandparents even though they weren't warm. It's important I think as long as they weren't negative. My german grandmother used to fix us blintzes for breakfast - and let us eat pizza for breakfast when we were older. She taught me to sew, made my wedding cake and used to play the piano so that we could all sing together. She loved silly 20's songs like "High Hopes". and "Maresy Doats". She never would let me use the roller on the washing machine. Just knew that I would take my arm off. All the dangerous things in life.

She was great but didn't always approve of my friends who generally came in a rainbow of colors. She told me that she would disown me if I went to Cal Berkeley because it was full of communists and she loved Liberace. What a character.

For breakfast my maternal Grandma served flat pancakes as big as a plate and oatmeal with warm cream just milked from their cows. Mmmmmm! After I got out on my own I found out that the pancakes were really giant crepes! Who knew? I also learned to like different kinds of cooked greens, like kale. My paternal Grandfather taught us card games. We spent hours and hours playing cribbage, pinochle and canasta. That's what happens when you don't have TV!!! LOL

I didn't have any friends who weren't like me until I was out of high school. My little town was about 99.9% Caucasian. After I left fort the Big City (Portland, OR) I made sure to find friends of all colors and persuasions so I could learn about many different cultures and societies. I've always preferred to live in a multicultural neighborhood. My family would not have approved of many of my friends either, but I just didn't bother to tell them. Most of them never got out of our little town anyway.

Ah, your giant crepe filled with sour cream and strawberries is a blintz! I played hours of cribbage with my Irish grandfather too. Isn't it funny?

I went out and covered and uncovered the succulents today. It's nice that it's cooling off. The little pups under the tree are doing better because they get shade. I have to check the tree tomorrow and make sure that it's OK.

I went to a plant sale at Wegman's today 30 percent off for the weekend. Bought a bunch of mother ferns. I have a very shady back yard. Now I've got to go to Roger Reynolds and get some Ligularia and some more interesting ferns to go with them.
A couple more variegated Pteris too.

My German grandmother had no garden skills - although she did everything else well.

A blintz? Really? I never knew! We either put maple syrup on them or jam. We didn't roll them up, we folded them in half and then into quarters. Funny how the same food can be presented in different ways, isn't it? Maybe cribbage was that generation's choice of card games, and most people knew how to play.

Glad the succulents are doing well. Tell me about Wegman's and Roger Reynolds. Are they both nurseries? Where are they? I'm not familiar with Ligularia or Pteris. I looked them up though. It looks like Ligularia is in the Compositeae family? What's special about Pteris? They are pretty, aren't they? What's a mother fern? Are there father ferns? LOL

My maternal grandparents always had a vegetable garden and various kinds of fruit - currants, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, apples, cherries, etc. We did too, and we also did our own canning and made homemade jams and jellies. I miss that a lot. It's not fun doing it by yourself. Besides, you end up with way too much for your personal needs, and around here there's no one to trade with like there was back home.

It is certainly not fun doing it by yourself.
Wegman's nursery is on Woodside Road in Redwood City just West of El Camino. Roger Reynolds is a little gem hidden on Encinal Avenue in Atherton between Middlefield Road and El Camino.

Wegmans is really good at ordering things for you. They never forget you. Roger Reynolds is a place that you can go and you find something interesting every time. They carry a wide variety but not cheap. More than 75 different A. Palmatum and when I was looking all over the country for a Betula Crimson Frost - they had it already. They will look all over the place for something you want and then when it comes in they are apt to forget you and put it in the general stock. But sometimes it works. It's my favorite nursery. Much better than Yamagami's I think. But that's just my opinion.

This is a photo of my dog Penny standing in a patch of Mother Fern. They call it that because it makes little fernlets along it's stems. It's really a beautiful fern. Stays evergreen too.

Not a very good photo of the pteris. But it's in the top right hand corner. They get about 2 and a half feet tall but this is a new one. They grow very quickly in the right conditions though.

The plants with the round leaves and the yellow spots in the middle of the photo are Ligularia - this is the spotted version. I will take some better photos of these as soon as I can get around to it. They are evergreen too and don't seem to mind growing in the dark.

doss and pekasky...I am so enjoying reading about your youth and your grandparents. You brought up alot of fond memories for me also.
I didn't see my paternal grandparents much at all. I saw my maternal grandparents more but maybe not more than once a month for a Sunday. They were german also. My grandfather was a baker. My grandmother was a tremendous cook and baker too. I will always remember her wonderful cooking and baking. She made the most delicious yeast cakes, especially with the plums and crumbs and poppyseed cakes. She was the best cook and would make pot roast and roast goose and potato dumplings and red cabbage. Since they lived in an apartment in the city, they had no garden. I did hear stories about the fish that they would fatten up in their bathtub...for a holiday meal I believe. Grandparents are such a big influence on children. I try to do things with my GC too, that they will remember me for.

A succulent/cactus question, as this is a plant forum isn't it! ;-)
I had a bowl indoors with cactus. It was doing very well with once a month watering. I think I either under or over watered and one actually burst open. What do you think caused it? It was very watery...the small pieces fell to the soil and I thought they would re-root, but they dried up.

Thank you both for your nice compliments on my daylily photo. Daylily West does not have very nice photos in my opinion. A photo can make or break a purchase for me. Often times I find the photo far outweighs the actually plant for me. I am often disappointed with the actually flower. It would be alot cheaper if I just collected photos! Maybe that is what I should do...I have loads of them, plus they wouldn't take any care as compared to the actual plants!

Have a wonderful holiday week-end! Margie

Margie - I love the idea of fattening the fish in the bathtub. I'm so glad that you shared your story with us.

My mother tells a story of the depression when my grandmother had made venison stew. The game warden dropped by so my grandmother fed it to the dogs so the warden wouldn't find out it was poached. She always cooked meat until it was mush (pot roast) and at the same time gave us raw hamburger to eat. We ate canned sardines and soda crackers, creamed herring, does anyone eat those things anymore?

My Scots grandmother used to make biscuits every Sunday morning and we would stand around the breadboard while she cut them not being able to wait until we had our piece of dough. It was always a long wait until the end. Then we'd smash butter and dark Kayro syrup together and eat the biscuits with that. And green beans cooked with bacon until they were gray. Funny how things we eat change.

I used to send my kids to school with shrimp sandwiches until the other kids started teasing them about it. Now my grandson takes California Roll to school and no one says anything. Food is such a big part of culture.

I do know what you are saying about the daylilies being so different from the photos. That's why it's so important we see them here. We get an idea of what the performance really is. Spacecoast Cranberry Kid for instance seems to be a really consistent performer. While I have some that have been incredibly disappointing. I am looking forward to Margo though. Your photo is beautiful.

By the way, I just bought a couple of Lambertson's for the spring and they are quite reduced from this year. They want me to wait for anymore until the spring catalog comes out. The prices will be significantly lower.

Can't wait to hear what your info is on the succulents. Exploding plants seem very exciting indeed.

doss: Thanks for all the info on the nurseries and wonderful pictures of the Ligularia and Pteris, and especially thanks for the awesome picture of Penny!! She’s to die for! It’s always good to know of plants which will grow in the dark. I never knew about mother ferns before! Maybe I need to make a special trip down your way and we can go to those nurseries. Even though these plants are ones I wouldn’t buy (because I’d kill them, LOL), I’d love to see the nurseries. I can always find something I like in special places like that.

Margie: You’re welcome!! A couple of reasons your cactus could have split is too much water or too much fertilizer. Either will cause the inside to grow or swell faster than the outside “skin.” BTW: I loved the “fish in the bathtub” story!! My parents divorced and years later my dad moved away to a place next to a river in which there were catfish. He kept a cage in the river with catfish in it. He’d eat a few, then let the rest go and catch new ones. His theory was that the catfish needed to be able to swim around freely and eat in order for the flesh to be at its best when eaten.

Both of you: Funny how we have such similarities, isn’t it? Oh, the food!!!! We had all kinds of fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs from the chickens as well as the chickens themselves, milk and meat from my grandparents’ dairy farm until they sold it. In addition, my grandfathers and father were hunters and fishermen, so we had venison, elk, quail, duck, goose, pheasant, chukkar, trout, steelhead, and salmon in season. If we bought beef or pork it was in quarters or halves. All was shared with the family as needed. Have you ever had kale? It’s the greatest greens in the world IMHO! Strip the leaves from the stem, put in kettle and add water and salt. Overfill the kettle with the kale; it will cook down. Once it has, add Hillshire Farm Polska Kielbasa and cook more. When done, add flour/water thickening. Make mashed potatoes. Put mashed potatoes on plate. Make hole in middle, fill to overflowing with kale. Mix up and eat. Ambrosia!!

Make mashed potatoes and then fill them with Kale? Interesting idea. I must have cooked Kale incorrectly or gotten a bad batch. Tried it once and never again. I'll try your recipe.

I'd love to go nursery hopping if I'm well enough. There are days and then there are days like today. Yuchhh. They have hot, sunny and dry plants too. :-)

My grandparents and my dad were Chiropractors - well my dad still is. They used the barter system a lot so that we always had crates of produce and free plumbing. The organic oranges (yes, even in those days) were so good that we would eat them until they gave us hives.

Love the game and fish story too. I went fishing with my grandfather once to catch Bonita. Never did it again, but we had it canned and we had it smoked and we had it fresh. I was very fond of the dry smoked Bonita. But I get really seasick.

We'd catch trout in the sierras - but no hunting. Just lots and lots of camping. Probably my favorite German thing was Braunsweiger. Yum! They make it with pistachios now, but sometimes my friend brings it back from Milwaukee for me. It's great.

My sister and I had every kind of pet imaginable - well dog size and below. Skunks (not very good pets), snakes, cats, horned toads, tons of parakeets that my dad bred, tropical fish, chickens, ... I hated my chicken. She bit.



:-)

How did you cook the kale? I cook it German style – for a LONG time. I usually cook it for about 30 minutes or so, then put in the sausage. Then it’s cooked for another hour or two. Then add the flour/water thickening, and cook for at least 15-20 minutes. No nutrients left, but great taste!! LOL I tried to make it once for a HomeEc class in high school and it was a disaster because the teacher wouldn’t let me cook it long enough to be tasty.

No one in the family went fishing in the ocean very often, but when they did they went for Chinook salmon. I love salmon, except for smoked salmon. I could eat it every day. Because I always ate ocean-caught and river-caught fish, I have a distinct dislike of all of these “farmed” fish. The salmon in particular tastes terrible. Braunsweiger – yummmm!! How about weinerschnitzel? Bratwurst? Potato pancakes?

I don’t know if we actually had a barter system. I just know that we had food and services when we needed them from friends and family. I’m sure my mom and dad provided friends and family with the same as needed. My dad was a real Renaissance man – there wasn’t much he couldn’t do. I helped him build houses, and he was also a river guide. Then he had his “real” job, which was working in the mill. My mom was a waitress and bartender. Both of them worked nights, so they were always around when we got up and when we got home from school.

Never went camping when I was a kid. There was no reason to – we had the great outdoors all around us. Forests, rivers, ocean, mountains, lots of wilderness. Tillamook, Oregon was the largest town in the county, and its population was less than 3,000 people back then. The population of the rest of the county wasn’t much larger - probably 6,000 total. Nowadays Tillamook hasn’t grown much – about 4,400 people. But the county is a LOT bigger – about 25,000 people.

We had all kinds of pets too – dogs, chickens, parakeets, snakes, rats, lizards. No cats because my dad couldn’t stand them. We had these neat chickens – black with red combs. Mom and dad, and they hatched out one chick. Very tame and friendly. My sister and I had about a 500-foot walk from the bus stop on the highway down to our house. If the chickens were out, they’d come running to greet us and want to be carried back to the house.

I must not have cooked it long enough. Probably in the French style. Throw it in and take it out. No wonder it tasted awful. I understood that German grandmothers cook everything within an inch of it's life. I should have known. Did you have Shamtorte? One of my favorites.

Once I made a pie crust using my grandmothers recipe - I must have been about 14. I took three parts flour and 1 part lard and it wouldn't stick together. So I kept adding lard until it did. Yuchhhhhhhh. I had missed the part about the water.

How did you carry your books and the chicken too?

That is a very tiny town. The one I grew up in was 19,000 when I left. Still small enough that when I did something that I wasn't supposed to do my mother knew about it before I got home.

Yep, kale is just disgusting when heated up and served, or even cooked for 10-15 minutes. Must be cooked to mush to taste good. Never heard of sham torte. I looked it up on the Web, and found 3 recipes - 1 - egg whites & sugar; 2 - egg whites, sugar, vinegar; 3 - egg whites, sugar, vinegar, cream of tartar, vanilla. I like #3 the best. How decadent!! As to the pie crust - that must have been really nasty stuff!!

It was easy to carry the chickens. They flew up and perched on our shoulders, and the chick was tiny so easy to carry until it grew up enough to perch. They just talked and talked all the way to the house.

My town was so small my parents knew what I had done BEFORE I did it!! LOL